The Child Killer

By Bob Liddil

“I hate being nobody.” Jesse screwed his face into a scowl at the reality behind his flat statement. “It’s like being dead, but still breathing, you know what I mean?”

The alienist made a faint affirmative sound and nodded. “How does that make you feel?” He asked.

Jesse closed his eyes, embracing the temporary darkness afforded by doing so. He knew what the detective wanted to hear. The rage that seethed inside him bubbled and boiled evoking a bitter taste in his mouth, but he fought an impulse to tell the alienist before whom he sat exactly how he felt, that the murders he had committed made him come alive as he killed and tortured his victims. He inhaled a great breath and let it out slowly, reining in his rage.

“I feel like I need to prove myself,” Jesse answered. “I need to prove that I can be a good person, instead of the monster everybody expects that I am.”

A faint smile crossed his face, the face of a child, unblemished but for a single flaw; one eye was milky white - a physical fact for which he had been mercilessly teased for most of his 14 years of life.

The alienist scribbled some notes onto a sheet of paper. He had been charged by the court to evaluate the child before him, a child who stood accused of two heinous murders allegedly committed in and around his South Boston neighborhood. He asked, “Jesse, do you know what year it is?”

Jesse answered, “1874.”

“Can you tell me how old you are?”

“I’ll be 15 soon,” the boy replied.

“I understand you were in reform school…”

Jesse winced a little. Three years earlier, he had been arrested and convicted of torturing seven small boys, none of whom had died. The newspapers had dubbed him "The Boston Boy Fiend." He hadn’t been “nobody” then. The eyes of the city had been focused on him and him alone. Every soul in Boston who could read knew his name.

“Yeah.” Jesse admitted. “I got sent away. But they let me out early.” He shifted slightly in his chair.

“For good behavior.” He added.

“Do you know why we’re here?” The alienist pressed.

“They think I killed some kid named Horace Mullen. And some girl who came into my momma’s dress shop.”

“Did you do it?”

"I suppose I did." Jesse said nonchalantly.

The alienist scribbled busily. The boy’s insanity was obvious to him. He simply had to convey the fact to a jury.

Jesse sat quietly for a moment, staring, amused as the man struggled with his task, then he closed his eyes once again, reaching deeply into the darkness.

* * *

Gray walls came into focus as Jesse shook the sleep from his head. Another day had dawned in an endlessly mind-numbing sequence of time that knew no speed, neither fast nor slow. How long had he been in solitary? He’d asked himself that same question for the entirety of his 41 years of incarceration. He’d been 15 years old upon entering the cold concrete and steel cavern that would be his home and his prison. Had it really been 41 years? Had they really been so completely and utterly devoid of event as to pass without leaving memories beyond the number itself?

Gray walls and silence had been his constant companion for all this time. The silence was broken occasionally by the footsteps of this or that guard come to fetch him to the solitary exercise yard, or to the showers for an occasional bath. But silence and gray walls otherwise were his life; as were memories of the past, before prison, when he was someone.

His mother had been his only visitor. She came once a month until she died. She had always believed him innocent of the crimes for which he’d been convicted. When she passed, the days piled one on top of another, unbroken by anything but an hour a day of air and sky and the stinging cold water of the shower.

This morning was different. More than one pair of feet walked the hallway. This was an occasion. Not since he’d been committed here had more than one guard come to bring a meal or take him out. It was a positive stampede of echoes, followed by the unmistakable turn of the lock in his cell door.

Fear momentarily electrified his body. A thought flashed through his mind. Were they coming to execute him? All those many years ago, as a 14-year-old convicted murderer, he had been sentenced to hang. He was the youngest person ever to receive the mandatory death penalty for 1^st degree murder.

Details of the trial tumbled through Jesse’s consciousness. His defense had tried to prove he was insane. The prosecution had ultimately prevailed though. He sat noncommittally through the entire trial “with his head back and hands laced behind his neck as if he were pondering what to do on summer vacation rather than fighting for his life,” as one reporter later wrote.

His breath shortened. His heart rate increased. Were they coming to kill him now, after all these years?

The door opened, revealing a guard with whom Jesse was familiar and a tall young man dressed in a suit. The young man seemed to be in charge, because he instructed the guard to wait at the door while he entered.

“Mr. Pomeroy,” the young man began. “I am Second Assistant Warden Charles O’ Riley.”

Jesse involuntarily shrank back a little. This seemed to confirm his fear. No warden had entered his cell since his ill-fated escape attempt a ten years previous to this moment. And that had not been a pleasant encounter.

Jesse managed the word, “Sir,” before lapsing into silence. His fear was obvious. The young warden saw it written in his eyes and moved to reassure him.

“Mr. Pomeroy, I bring you news.” The warden said quickly. “Your sentence has been relaxed. You are being released to general population.”

The news stunned the prisoner. He stammered, “W-what year is it?”

“It’s 1917.” Came the answer. “Times have changed.”

Jesse just blinked. To be with other prisoners after 41 years of solitary confinement… what would that be like? Jesse trembled at not knowing the answer.

“Come with us now, Jesse.” The warden said gently. “We’re going now.”

* * *

The noise was deafening. The smell was quite different from solitary. There were catcalls and other comments shouted from hidden places as he walked, flanked by four guards into the main cellblock that was now to be Jesse’s new home. One exchange, he heard quite clearly.

“Do you know who that is?”

Naw, who is he?”

“That’s Jesse Pomeroy. He’s comin’ off 40 years in the hole.”

The din faded into whisper and the whispers into inaudible background. Jesse raised his head and looked around him for the first time. They knew him. They knew of him. This place, his new home, would not be the hell for him that he feared it would be.

Flanked by the four guards and under the watchful eyes of more than three hundred occupants of the cellblock, Jesse quickened his pace. This would be his new home for the rest of his life.

He was not “nobody” any more.